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6 artists give Charles Allis museum fresh interpretation

Should museums show historic works by artists the public will know, or contemporary work that few are familiar with but reflect current trends, opinions and attitudes?

Institutions such as Milwaukee's venerable Charles Allis Art Museum easily find themselves in such a dilemma. Housed in a 1911 Tudor-style mansion, its permanent collection is overwhelmingly European and age appropriate, reflecting not just the personal tastes of the Allises, but by extension Milwaukee's industrial history.

It also encapsulates a celebration of a European past (in art, architecture and décor) and a repudiation of what was happening domestically in the early 20th century. (In contrast, in 1911, Frank Lloyd Wright was building Taliesin in Spring Green.) The Allis does show contemporary Wisconsin artists in group and solo exhibitions, but these often seem ill at ease with the permanent collection and the building.

Upon her arrival in 2009, curator Martha Monroe was struck by the sense of stasis that permeated the institution's collection; it cannot be increased or decreased in size.

Now, in a clever move, six Wisconsin-based artists have been invited to reassess the Allis as an institution, former residence and repository of a personal collection as it marks its 100th anniversary. Consequently, the uneasy relationship between the collection and contemporary guest artists has been negated in an exhibition/installation that has prompted the freshest reinterpretation of the Allis in decades.

Each artist selected a room. For one it was deeply personal: both of Martha Glowacki's parents worked for Allis-Chalmers, and she received a four-year college scholarship from the company. Selecting the Allis' bedroom, she and fellow artist Alexander Boyes collaborated to suggest memories of personal experience and objects: Boyes re-created the sound of industry to evoke the heavy machinery that facilitated Allis' luxury and what he might have had running through his mind as he drifted off to sleep. Glowacki created commemorative objects that belie the noise and massive infrastructure that funded them.

With the Allises long gone, the dining room, selected by Ashley Morgan, mourns for its previous occupants: the chairs, table and light fixtures are wrapped in ghostly white cloths. Out of view, a fan agitates the tablecloth, and a sound system re-creates the sound of chairs being moved. The elements resurrect the room from the dead, bringing back a sense of life to a room that was likely one of the most lively in the house.

The sitting room, selected by Reginald Baylor, showcases an artist who appreciates the fact that Allis succeeded by using the state-of-the-art technology of his era. In turn, Baylor uses 10-inch digital screens displaying icons and mathematical algorithms to reflect the programming required to fully engage with the modern world just as Allis had logistical challenges in Milwaukee's industrial heyday.

Gary Gresl's fascination with objects and the value applied to them, either as antiques or within context, is central to his work. Taking his cue from the heavily manufactured objects Allis mass-produced industrially and the far less common items he purchased for enjoyment, he fittingly chose the library (with its implications of acquired knowledge, learning and enlightenment) to challenge the notion of what was considered worthy, collectible, worldly and educated a century ago to the new, broader aperture we employ today. Installing a cacophony of disparate objects, Gresl reminds us all that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and "collectible" is a subjective term.

Objects are Carol Emmons' love, too. In the house and its contents she sees alchemy at work: how things transform from raw materials (base iron) to manufactured machines and equipment, to the things they in turn make to the wealth they create and what that wealth then bought. By taking objects - mostly from outside Milwaukee and the United States - the Allises created a collection that forms its own identity beyond that of the individual objects contained therein. Most have never been exhibited before, and Emmons mingles in "fake" antiques to raise questions of value and authenticity.

Once a residence, Charles and Sarah Allis bequeathed the mansion to Milwaukee County "to delight, educate and inspire." While very much of the time, place and personality of its original owners, one likes to think that the Allises would approve and appreciate this exhibition, for it certainly fulfills their vision twice over - for the six artists who have re-examined what the Allis is and represents, and for the visitors who have the opportunity to reengage with fresh eyes.

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